jenga22's comments

What the U.S. considers a practical problem often isn't. That is a shitty statement. The U.S. also considered spending 2T on a jet that was worse than the F-22. Just because the U.S. spends on something doesn't mean it has a practical application.

Nevertheless, the internet turned out to be transforming from its original purpose. We can sit here and argue about cyrptocurreny but the game is young and we wont know what it will turn into in 30 years. Just like the people in the 70 and 80s didn't know how transforming the internet would become for our society.

You sure about that? Arpanet was created to exchange short messages in case of a nuclear attack on the United States rendered all above ground communication and survivability useless. I hardly consider that a practical use case. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_during_the_Cold_W...

Right. I agree. I am also going one step further and arguing that crypto is more of a fan club then a cult. There are cults way stronger that illicit a far greater emotion reaction that crypto.

Even now, when the price is in the toilet, a lot of really smart people are having sane discussions across sub-reddits. And those very smart people are still checkin in code and making improvements.

This has happened before. During the BBS era and ARPA Net era, a lot of people said those things were "cute" and only used by underground cult figures. They said that people who believed in the "internet" were dillusional that a global network would ever happen. They also said that it would have limited impact on society. They said it would stay largely with universities. Newspapers laughed. Television networks laughed. Music companies shrugged it off. But the one thing I learned from both those eras is if there are a lot of smart people working in it then it is not to be discounted.

A lot of things are cults and it doesn't have to do much with social media or the behaviors he is outlining.

Apple - You can argue Apple, the hardware company, is a cult. The fans are rabid in their support for the company. Often the discussions are not at all civil and in this particular case there is no financial incentive.

Let's move even farther away.

There are cults for clothing companies. Companies that make drinks. Gaming companies. Youtube streamers. Heck, there even cults in processor companies.

Take for example AMD. I have had chats with people who just get livid when Intel vs. AMD conversations come up and I am thinking to myself "We are talking about CPUs right?".

There are even cults with Operating Systems. Just ask the nix vs. Windows folks. Those discussions get heated.

So I am not sure what he is trying to argue here. There will always be folks developing who will have a civil discourse and try to make the currency better and then there will be the peanut gallery. That comes with anything that gains wider exposure.

Not sure why they can't secure their cold storage. That is what makes these hacks so suspicious any why investors need to be really weary of new exchanges.

Either way it killed the rally pretty nicely if that was the intent.[1]

[1] https://blockmodo.com/quotes/BTC

This is in very bad taste.

We do not know who the acquirer officially is yet. They are also assuming that MS has already ruined GitHub.

Based on what we have seen in the last few years from Microsoft, they are very serious about not messing up when it comes to developer tools and the ecosystem.

They are also showing a huge capacity for working across platforms and being supportive of the community as a whole. I don't know where the pieces fall, but this was in poor taste.

Not good GitLab.

Sure, one is an operating system and one is an API. In the literal sense you are correct.

However, You're completely arguing a point that is different from what the entire discussion is about. We're talking about proprietary control points. The iOS operating system is proprietary and the App store dictates who and who can't publish on it.

The same is the case with Twitter. It has APIs and they control who and who can't use them to make apps.

Both companies have invited developers to make apps. Both companies have benefited from having those apps make their services/devices useful.

It's the same thing. iOS is controlled by Apple. Twitter's API is controlled by Twitter. Both invite developers to develop on their platform so they can reap the benefit of increased user functionality.

Apple has now entered dangerous territory.

Over the last month they seem to have banned apps because some government out there didn't like that app. To make matters worse, those very same governments weren't happy with the app being removed from their regional app store but they demanded it removed from all app stores.

The VPN issue was a wake up call for a lot of developers. These apps were on the app store for years and because China didn't like these apps one morning, they banned it and referred to some arbitrary clause in the app store TOS.

The thing is this script has played out before. Twitter also had a vibrant ecosystem of third party developers. Those developers made Twitter into a billion dollar company. Then one morning, they decided certain classes of apps were not okay. This back and forth went on for months until there were barely any apps left. Twitter eventua

The same thing is happening with Apple. Several founders I've spoken to, all with big exits in the past, refuse to write apps first for Apple or Google because of the threat of getting "banned one morning".

Worse, VCs are now getting nervous in investing in startups where the app is the fundamental foundation of the business.

For any market to thrive, there needs to be transparency and stability. Just like Twitter, once developers are gone....they're gone. They won't come back and consumers will start wondering if the 1,000 dollar smartphone they purchased, with subpar apps, is really worth it.

The one thing that is good about this is that a lot of cities are now talking about rolling out their own broadband network. If Comcast does anything remotely as not adhering to the principles of net neutrality, then you are going to see even more cities talk about getting their own network.

Doesn't seem true. For example, the Frank Dod Act was passed by Democrats and Wall St. hates that law. Another example, the Consumer Protection Bureau. Another agency that Wall St. hates which was passed by Democrats. If anything, it seems that again Republicans are happy to pass laws that lowers taxes for Wall St. and removes regulation.

To your point, Wall St. donates to Democrats but it seems to have very limited effect compared to Republicans.

This is interesting. I wonder why only Republicans are targeted consistently for these types of laws that are blatantly bad for consumers and why it works on them. However, I am sure money has been offered to Democrats but what's the reason it never sticks?

I don't see this comment as helpful. Bitcoin, and other crypto currencies, is akin to the internet when it was first introduced. It has the potential to disrupt the value business which is controlled by governments at the moment.

Worse, a lot our value system is controlled by corporations that have fees littered throughout every single transaction we do today. Crypto-Currencies have a chance to disrupt a system that is increasingly not good for the common person.

Secondly, Chinese buyers area already visiting the US and buying property and they pay cold hard cash. So not seeing what your point is here.

Look, I am all game for attacking fake news. However, this seems to me like a blanket ban which could apply to anyone. For example, Fox News has a slant which one could consider highly misleading. Would they get de-ranked too?

Wouldn't a better solution be to identify the claims in the article and automatically alert the reader that one or more claims have been debunked? Then let the user decide?

I wonder what they do once the robot sees the uranium? I mean the robot itself is now heavily contaminated. Do they just leave the robot down there? Or do they somehow decontaminate it so they can use it again?

The whole notion of owning a TV is becoming ridiculous. The cost of ownership is simply not worth it. Fist, you have the cost of the screen itself. You buy a TV, spend lots of money on it, and then it simply spies on you. We've seen this already on Vizio and Samsung TVs already. This is another feather in the cap for this trend.

Then there is the cost of cable, which is absurdly expensive. To get all the channels you want, you end up spending a couple of hundred dollars per month.

Want to do the cord cutting route? Well that is trending to be even more expensive as each service charges about 10 dollars per month. That doesn't even account for live sports.

The TVs themselves seem to be going obsolete every two years. First it was HDTV, then 3DTV, then HDTV 4K. On the tech side it was LED, LCD, ULED, now OLED. Remember when your CRT TV lasted 10+ years?

Edit: Also they don't get updates after six months. Apps stop working as people have mentioned. But more importantly, they don't get security updates. So your Smart TV morphs into a Creep TV where hackers have their way with it to do their bidding.

Overall, it is easier to just not do the whole TV thing. You will save a ton of money and be much happier at the same time.

If you look at raw traffic numbers Mashable is far bigger than Techcrunch and far more profitable.

What you are feeling and seeing is that the media is turned into a hyper-partisan machine where any issue discussed is in the context of extremes. It drives emotion, creates and drives viral content, and drives revenue. However, it doesn't produce substantive content one would find meaningful. It doesn't pay.

Re-read my initial post. It is just one such example. Even the game zones I feel are areas where you increase your risk surface area.

Almost everyone in NYC goes out at 5 for drinks and they get shit faced. While this is great for team building, it is now not a great idea for reasons that are obvious. It is not a SV thing by any measure.

I am not sure why men go to happy hours with alcohol or go to social events where the chances of stepping over the line explode exponentially. Going out and hanging with your co-workers over a beer might have been a good idea six months ago but is no longer a good idea.

Why?

Any of those things you said or did, could be construed a million different ways. Was that one thing you said flirting? Did you say that one thing that offended someone who went thru this particular experience as a child you were unaware of? Did you talk about that actor you really liked that turned out to be a child molester today and now makes you look less than acceptable?

Your past behavior carries weight today. What was once acceptable might not be today and there are consequences today. You will lose your career and job over even the faintest claim. Here is the money paragraph:

> Still, some workers said they were starting to follow “the Pence rule,” which was formerly known as the Billy Graham rule, after the evangelical preacher, but is now named for Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Pence has said he does not eat alone with women who are not his wife or attend an event without her if alcohol will be served.

I would even arguing going to those "game zones" is all potentially risky behavior. I know I am not being politically correct, however just doing your job and leaving is a better solution. It is better than losing everything over it.